A number of folks who are at the HP Master the Cloud event in Toronto got together last night for dinner and we had a pretty wide ranging conversation discussing technology and technology adoption.

At one point, someone at the table said "I understand Cloud Bursting", and naturally with my slightly contrarian nature I responded “Oh really, explain it to me, since I don’t think there are many people who actually do understand it. How does it work?” I realized I was backing them into a corner that probably no one – especially me – could get out of. I admitted to them that I was being unfair.

The reason I say that is that in order to answer the question, you need to understand what the organization is actually trying to do. What constraints are being placed on their environment? How do they measure value? What kind of software resources do they have available?

It is easy to say “cloud bursting” but quite a different level of expertise is required to actually implement it in software so it works reliably and securely. There is a level of architecture sophistication that is hard to find. I can guarantee only a tiny percentage of current IT systems can support this level of flexibility. It is definitely “doable” -- just not a simple answer and not everyone is going to be willing to pay for what it will take.

There are many aspects of the movement to a more flexible IT environment that have similar underlying complexities. It’s like using the 5 Whys to get to the root cause. It can really make you think about what’s important.

Steve Simske is an HP Fellow and Director in the Printing and Content Delivery Lab in Hewlett-Packard Labs, and is the Director and Chief Technologist for the HP Labs Security Printing and Imaging program.